The Time Rip

by Alexia James

  “What the hell is this? Christ, tell me this isn’t the girl’s.”

  “From her wrist, she had torn it open when he found her and he patched her up. I am assuming it was serious from the amount of blood.”

  “Okay, I’ll run her, but from everything you’ve told me I doubt we’ll find anything.”

  “What is your opinion Greg, do you think she could have jumped here?”

  “Can’t see how else she would have avoided him. Sanders might have his faults but he is an excellent tracker. If he hasn’t found her then I’m guessing it’s because she jumped.”

  “I would have to agree.”

  “Okay. Now we’ll show him how the pros get the job done. You got an address for her, anything like that?”

  “She works on Portobello Road, selling flowers. You might find her there.” He passed across a scrap of paper to Greg, “Her address.”

  “I’ll get onto it today. Jeremy is going to owe me big time. Especially if he doesn’t want me to mention any of this to Daniel.”

  Chapter 5

  It was after twelve when Greg finally reached Portobello. The rain had eased up leaving it cold and overcast. He drove around looking for a parking space, finally getting lucky on a side street nearby. The market was quiet, stallholders looking like they had had enough.

  He found Freya with surprising ease. He guessed her identity from the description Matt had given, plus the bulky bandage around her wrist. She was talking to a tough-looking skinny man and Greg followed her through the crowd; casually eavesdropping on her conversation while trying to confirm his guess.

  “Look, Martin, I’m sorry I lost you yesterday. I stopped to look at something, turned around and you were gone, but you need to stop coming to see me like this.”

  “I spent all afternoon looking for you, and you never answer your phone. I had to cancel the booking I made for us at the Red bar too.”

  Freya gritted her teeth and tried to remember how to be assertive. “I’m sorry you were inconvenienced, but I never agreed to have dinner with you and, in fact, already had plans. I don’t know how else I can make you understand, I’m not interested in going out with you.” She wondered how many times she would have to say it before he finally believed her.

  “I would understand if it was true, but we both know you have feelings for me, so why don’t we stop with all the pretence?”

  Freya came to a halt, hands on hips, and blew out a breath. “I don’t have feelings for you, Martin, you’re mistaken.” She threw her hands up in sudden exasperation. “When are you going to get it through your thick head that I don’t fancy you, I don’t want to date you, and I’m not even sure I want to see you as a friend anymore.”

  Greg narrowed his eyes as he watched the couple. Freya was slight. Her sneakers gave her no extra height as she squared up to the other man. He watched as the man stepped closer and grabbed her shoulders, aggression in his stance. “Okay, maybe you do need me to demonstrate how things stand,” he said, and leaned in close.

  Greg decided he had seen enough. He stepped forwards, tucked his fingers in the back of the man’s shirt collar and twisted sharply, pulling the man backwards and sending him flying. He looked down at Freya. “I was right. You need some self defence moves.”

  Freya stared up at the strange man who had come unexpectedly to her rescue. “What—”

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” shouted Martin, fists clenched in front of him.

  Greg stared at Martin, and looked his contempt. “Someone who is going to make life difficult for you if you don’t leave now.”

  Martin paused. All around them was silence, everyone nearby watching to see what would happen next. He shrugged and said tightly, “We’re not done here. I’ll speak to you later, Freya.” Then stalked off, anger clear in every step.

  Freya shook her head in annoyance. “Huh. Next time I’m not gonna bother with assertive, I’m just gonna get straight in there with a heavy-based frying pan.”

  The noise level around them returned to normal as people realised the show was over. Greg grinned. It was easy to see why Jeremy had fallen for this girl. She was not only pretty but was ready to laugh at a situation that might have daunted another girl.

  “Gregory Jones,” he said and held out a hand.

  “Freya Keele,” she replied.

  He took her hand and instead of shaking it, brought it up to look at the grubby bandage. “You should change the dressing on this. Jeremy said it might need stitches. We’ve got a medic back at the office if you want a second opinion.”

  Freya gasped and stepped back, colour draining from her face. She was surprised that he let go.

  “Don’t run away from me, Freya. Jeremy’s not here and we need to talk.”

  “H-how do you know him?”

  “He’s a work colleague. He’s been beating himself up over what happened. I don’t think he meant to scare you. He’s never had much in the way of finesse. If you want to scare the bejeebers out of someone, he’s your guy, but a skilled negotiator he ain’t.”

  “What do you want with me? I haven’t got a time thingy, I never did have. I don’t even know what one is.”

  “That’s okay. I just want to talk to you.”

  “Okay, so talk, I’m listening.”

  “Not here. Come with me, we can talk back at the office.”

  “No way. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “Freya, if I wanted to trick you I wouldn’t have told you that I know Jeremy. Believe me, I could have talked you into coming with me. I’m not going to lie, I need to talk with you, but these are sensitive matters and the market isn’t the place for them.”

  His words made sense but Freya was still uncertain. “How do I know you won’t take me back to Jeremy, or to that court thing he said about?”

  “I promise I won’t take you back to him today, Freya, you have my word. Hell, I’ll even teach you some Karate moves so you can deck him the next time you run into him. What court thing did he say about?”

  “He said if I lied to him he’d take me to the courts in 21 something and let them deal with me.”

  Greg rolled his eyes and shook his head, “No finesse. I take it you lied to him then.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Freya almost winced at the whine in her voice, “He was so mean and I just got mad. Now if he finds me he’s gonna drag me off to jail. He’s a cop isn’t he?” she said with a glum look at her sneakers.

  “Jeremy’s not a cop and none of us could just drag you off to court or jail. The courts give us specific people to chase; bail jumpers or known felons. We have to prove that we have the right guy before any dragging off is done. I already ran your DNA and you’re not on the list,” said Greg, raising his eyebrows in the direction of Freya’s bandaged wrist. “Jeremy knows this only too well. As I mentioned before, he’s not big on negotiation. In fact, he’s a bit of caveman, to be honest with you.”

  His words made sense and Freya began to relax. “Why are you guys suddenly chasing after me?”

  “I can’t speak for Jeremy, but I just want to talk to you for a while.”

  Freya sighed and wrapped her arms around herself. She could see the reason in what he was saying, and she did want to know more about the situation. She would need her accounts and ledger book back at some point too, and Jeremy still had her phone and house keys.

  “Where is the office?” she asked in defeat.

  He gave her a warm smile in response and said, “It’s in W1, a short walk from here.”

  She sighed again and began to walk with him. “Did you mean it when you said you’d teach me how to beat him up?”

  Greg chuckled, “Sure, no problem. It’s about time someone taught him some manners. Have to admit though, I’m curious to know what you used on the handcuffs.”

  Freya stopped in her tracks. “He told you about the handcuffs?”

  “I had it second hand from Matt.” He held up both hands as if in self-defence.

&n
bsp; Freya scowled, “What else did he tell you?”

  Greg stifled a laugh and Freya’s scowl deepened. She turned to him again, “Well, what else?”

  “Please don’t hurt me.” He shot her a glance, eyes dancing with laughter.

  “Tell me, now!”

  “Just something about the amount of trouble you gave him over cleaning that up,” he inclined his head towards her wrist, “Apparently you didn’t want his help.”

  Freya narrowed her eyes at him and huffed again. Great. They had all obviously been laughing at her misfortunes.

  “Don’t worry, Freya. I’ll teach you some moves and you can beat him up next time you see him. If it’s any consolation, the guys have all given him a hard time over letting you escape in the first place. His job is to keep people secure for transfer. He has to get all the hardened felons to the courts, and by losing you he’s made himself look incompetent.”

  Great, that was really going to make him less angry with her. How had she managed to get into this fix? All she had done was forget to pack a bottle of water.

  Greg’s office was in a narrow three-story town house. It had a fancy looking reception area where they signed in before taking the elevator to the third floor. His office was a mess. Paperwork slung over every available surface including the floor.

  “Hey, you don’t know anything about programming do you?” he asked, inclining his head towards a laptop on the desk.

  Freya gave him a look.

  “Oh well, worth a try.” He pulled out a chair for her and wandered around to the other side of the desk, not waiting to see if she took it or not.

  Freya sat down, smiling a bit at his easy manner. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

  “I want you to start at the beginning and tell me everything that happened the day you first met Jeremy. Don’t miss anything out, even if you think it’s not important, I want to hear it.”

  Freya put her head on one side, thinking over that day and debating how much to tell him. He looked easygoing enough, but Freya was not sure how far she could trust him. After Jeremy’s apparent duplicity, her trust in others had taken a bit of a knock.

  It might be just as well to play her cards close until she figured out more of what she was dealing with here, and after everything that had happened there was no way she was giving up the location of her time doorway. If Jeremy tried to leave her stranded back in the past again, she wanted a sure way out.

  She wondered about Joe, but quickly decided he was not any part of all this. His expression when she had mentioned things like the M4 had told its own story. He had been humouring her about the van whilst trying his best to help her. No. Joe had not been in on any of this, and would most likely make a good ally if she were stuck back there again. At least she would have one friend she could trust. She would keep quiet about Joe as much as possible.

  In the end, she decided she would stick as closely to the truth as she could, and would only omit the bit about the time doorway and her time with Joe. She would make it sound like she still thought Jeremy was living in this century. Otherwise, why would she have left her accounts and diary with him, both of which had the date all over them?

  When she was finished, Greg leaned back in his chair. “You had no idea he was living in 1908 until he told you.”

  “I’m still not sure I believe that’s where he is. It sounds like lunacy and if it wasn’t for the fact that he teleported us from the market to his house, I don’t think I’d even be here talking to you.”

  “I hear you. Well, I’m glad there isn’t another time device going around,” he paused and then looked her dead in the eye, “Who were you running from when Jeremy found you at the market?”

  Freya squashed down a feeling of triumph. He was not nearly as sharp as Jeremy. “That idiot you pulled off me today.”

  “And he is…”

  “Martin Johnson. He’s been pestering me for weeks.”

  “Okay.” Greg was certain she was not telling him anywhere near the truth, but he hadn’t really expected her to. He would play nice for now, win her trust and follow her around until he figured out for himself what had happened.

  He suspected the rogue device was with Martin, but in case she had some kind of relationship going with the man, decided to throw her off the scent a bit. He cast about for something suitable and then remembered an old conspiracy theory about time fields that had done the rounds a few years back.

  The rumour went that it was possible for a rip in time to open up near to the source of closely monitored time ports, thus making it possible to travel between two specific points without a time device. Nothing had ever been proven and no one really believed it was possible, but it would do for now and give him the space to do a little research on her friend Martin.

  “Sounds like what we have here is a time rip. It’s like an elastic bit of time; a place where you can simply walk through from one era to another without noticing.” He wished he had paid more attention to the science bit, but looking at Freya’s serious face he could see she had bought it.

  “Don’t worry, Freya. We’ll have a look for it and get it closed up.”

  Freya thought about not being able to see Jeremy again and felt strangely cold. “Greg,” she paused, “What is Jeremy if he’s not a cop, what do you all do here, and is he really from 2100?”

  Greg hesitated a moment too long and Freya, suddenly annoyed with the entire situation, narrowed her eyes. “Am I not entitled to ask a few questions? After all, you’ve grilled me this last half hour, and you’ve all been chasing around after me and threatening me.”

  Greg sighed, “Yes, we’re both from 2100.” He rummaged around the mess on his desk, finally locating the box of doughnuts under a heap of paper. He offered the box, grabbed the phone off the floor, dialled and spoke.

  “Grace, can I get a coffee in here? Yeah, wait a sec.” He glanced at Freya, who was eyeing the box doubtfully, and raised his eyebrows.

  Freya looked up, “Latte?” she said, with a hopeful look.

  Greg grinned in response, “Yeah and a latte, cheers.”

  “Doughnuts and coffee huh?” Freya said, watching him dump the phone back in the mess on the floor.

  Greg shook his head. “You gonna eat that or just look at it?”

  There was only one doughnut in the box. Freya smirked at the hopeful look on his face, grabbed the thing, took a huge bite and got covered in sticky gunk. She licked jam and sugar from her fingers.

  “Did Jeremy threaten you, Freya?”

  She glanced up at the unexpected question, “You know he did. He said he’d take me to court in 2112 if I lied to him.”

  Greg was relieved. Freya caught the look and quickly glanced away.

  “So what are you, time-travelling cops? I feel like I am in a hammy seventies sci-fi drama here. I can’t believe I’m even asking you.”

  “We’re an independent agency set up by the Government in 2100. Most of us came from a police background. Jeremy was a bounty hunter though. He was never a cop. As you may have guessed, we have some trouble with time devices getting into the wrong hands. Our jobs are to hunt down and take back the people and devices.”

  “That’s what Jeremy thought I was, some thug with a stolen time thingy?”

  Greg suppressed a smile at her words, “No, Freya. It’s obvious that you are neither a thug nor from the 22nd century. He believed that you had come across a time device by accident and might not have even realised that it allowed you to travel.”

  His words made sense. If Jeremy had thought she was a criminal, he would not have wasted time patching her up or threatening her with the courts. He would have just taken her there. She felt a shiver run through her at the thought.

  “Well I didn’t come across one, and I didn’t know I had gone back in time when I met Jeremy.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Freya. We’ll sort it all out.”

  “So. How come you have an office here and Jeremy works at home?”
/>   “The office is for data gathering mainly. When we want to transport someone, we take them somewhere a little quieter.”

  “Like the farmhouse.”

  “Freya, he knows that you are from this era. Even if you had stolen a time device from someone else here, we could not transport and abandon you to a future justice system that you know nothing about. It’s prohibited, and every one of us knows it; you have nothing to fear from Jeremy, he won’t take you to 2112, Freya, and his job is based in 1900, so it’s not like you’ll bump into him in the supermarket.”

  Grace interrupted with their coffee. Freya gratefully sipped hers. The hot milk radiated through her, giving comfort as it went down, and she felt some of the tension slide away. Things made a lot more sense now Greg had given her some information about what she was dealing with. He had been straight with her from the word go and she felt the tentative beginnings of trust.

  She was unable to stop thinking of Jeremy though, and her feelings for him were chaotic. The need to see him again was insane given their last meeting. She now understood a little more of why she had such a feeling of danger around him. Subconsciously, her mind must have seen him as a possible threat.

  She stared rather blankly at the window and spoke softly without thinking. “If you get the time rip closed I won’t see Jeremy again, will I?”

  Greg gave her a wide grin, laughter starting to bubble up, and as he caught the frown on her face, it only made bad, worse.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You like him, don’t you? After everything he did, you still like him. He is unbelievably lucky with women. Matt reckoned you’d never speak to him again after the strip search. What do you girls find so appealing anyway? The man’s a Neanderthal.”

  Shock, quickly followed by temper, scorched through her. She banged her cup down on the table, stood up and began to stalk around the desk towards him. It was not easy given the mess on the floor, but she managed to do a good job of looking threatening even as her feet slid on heaps of paper.

  “He told you and Matt about that. How many other people did he tell? He is a sneaking rotten pig and I don’t want to see him again, and if you keep laughing at me I’m going to hit you.”